Krugman on climate change legislation

Looking forward to the debate on climate change legislation, Paul Krugman takes the ethical position that action is urgently needed [LINK]. Good for him. Do legitimate commentators have any sway with the public anymore, though? Or are the Glenn Becks of the world now in complete control? [coverage of Beck, the boycott, and Van Jones: 1 2 3 4 5]

the chemistry of the greenhouse effect

Just a quick mention of an interesting study that I saw today. Three researchers from NASA and Purdue have a paper in the Journal of Physical Chemistry called Identifying the Molecular Origin of Global Warming [LINK]. It was brought to my attention by a news story on NewScientist.com [LINK]. Now based on that title, what would you expect from this paper? The news article doesn't completely make sense to me, perhaps because the writer tries to get so many barely-related things into such a tiny piece. It had me intrigued though, so I went and read the paper.

Before we get to the conclusions of the paper, let's consider what we know about global warming, specifically the greenhouse effect. We know that the most important greenhouse gas in terms of the human impact on climate is carbon dioxide. The way that the greenhouse effect works is that the molecules of carbon dioxide absorb infrared radiation emitted from the Earth's surface. Those molecules then emit infrared radiation at a slightly colder temperature, and they radiate in all directions. This has the effect of storing energy in the system, first by keeping it in molecules (before they radiate it away), and second by radiating back to the atmosphere and surface. So what does this paper have to offer?

The study uses calculations of molecular properties to investigate the greenhouse warming potential of different gases. The GWP of a gas is essentially a measure of how strongly a gas absorbs in the infrared, and how much warming it could cause over a given time in the atmosphere (typically 100 years). The way I've seen it presented, carbon dioxide is given a value of 1, and other gases are then shown compared to carbon dioxide. This study shows that there are a couple of families of molecules that have very large GWP, and presents an argument for how it comes about. The gist seems to be that molecules that have carbon-fluorine or carbon-chlorine bonds are particularly good greenhouse gases. These happen to include chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFC) and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). The warming potential increases strongly with the number of bonds between the F or Cl and the carbon atom. This seems to be because the vibrational modes of the molecules, which are quite pronounced for these bonds, plus the stretch length of these bonds mean that the infrared interaction is within the atmospheric window. If this is all sounding vague and Greek-ish, it's because I don't completely understand all the terminology in the paper. The point is just that F, and to a lesser degree Cl and H, have strong bonds with C in these molecules, and their vibrational modes are in the atmospheric window, meaning they can absorb strongly in the correct band to make a difference to climate.

The major problem with the paper is that these gases are quite rare in the atmosphere, and it is hard to make the case that they are making a significant difference to the climate. The counter to such an argument is that this paper shows the physical mechanism at the molecular level that is responsible for some gases being very good greenhouse gases. It means that you can basically know from the outset whether some gas, perhaps an industrial product of some sort, will be a strong greenhouse gas. It also can serve as an early warning against over-using these gases, since large increases in their production could have consequences for the climate system.

The secondary problem with this paper is the way it seems to be interpreted in that news story (and thus likely others). It's presented almost like it's the first time we've understood what is going on with the greenhouse effect. Of course, that is rubbish, as we've had a good handle on the basics for over a century, and detailed studies of CO2 for decades. The authors don't try play down their results either, which you can tell just from the title. This is not a world-shattering study; it is a nice piece of chemistry that has some application to climate science.

The cynicism is back, thanks politicians

Well, after yesterday's brief glimmer of hope, I read a similar article in the NYTimes.com [link]. This essentially gets back to the political business as usual methods of blaming everyone else, ignoring compromise as an option, and insisting on some perverse sense of fairness that is totally mistaken. Hooray for arguing about what to do about climate change as the world warms, ice melts, and species die. Hooray.

Displacing world leaders from their comfort zones

Just read an interesting article about plans for the upcoming UN summit on climate change in Copenhagen [LINK]. Apparently the world leaders in attendance will be stripped of their entourage and be allowed just a single aide. That aide should be their country's environment minister, or equivalent. They will be put into small groups to talk about climate change and its impacts, pairing high-emission countries with those feeling the impacts. They will dine with activists and corporate executives. The idea is to get these leaders out of their political bubbles and force them to think about the effects of climate change in human terms (dare I say in ethical terms?). This seems like a great idea. I wish that the summit were longer, and that this kind of immersion therapy could be extended for several days. Removing the physical and artificial barriers of distance and isolation does wonders for thinking about a topic, and I have some hope that this will spur more urgent action. (Then I'll go back to being cynical when, e.g., the USA congress starts bickering about jobs and fairness and postpones actual action.)

The Ethics of Climate Change

I recently read a book called The Ethics of Climate Change by James Garvey, who is a philosopher. Rather than go into any details of the book, I just want to recommend it as a fast, interesting read. It probably won't change your perspectives on climate change (well, maybe if you happen to be on the fence about the science), but it will provide a new voice to the conversation about the human response to the changing climate. It was refreshing to have a philosopher's view of climate change instead of the more typical science journalist or occasional scientist. The book also taught be a little bit about moral philosophy, but it isn't too technical or high-minded; in fact, the tone is quite conversational and readable.

What it seems to come down to is that there are ethical reasons for us to take action on climate change. No surprise, I suppose, but the reasoning in this book is slightly more clear and thought-out than we often get from other sources, even if the basic premises are the same. Garvey also points out that "us" means mostly those of us in industrialized countries that have contributed unevenly to the changing climate compared with most of the world, plus it means both governments and individuals. Much of the book is devoted to investigating reasons not to take action, or to delay action, or to distribute the response evenly among everyone (e.g., the USA and Peru both have to make cuts, or the USA won't). In the end, each of these objections is rejected as ethically wrong... that is, there is a right and wrong thing to do, and we (western governments and individuals) have been, and continue to be, doing the wrong thing. The arguments for the biggest polluters sacrificing more are clear; the arguments that delaying action (directly or indirectly) are clear; the reasons for taking immediate, dramatic action are clear. Garvey leaves little wiggle room for opposing views, and he certainly does not apologize for being one-sided. He argues from one perspective, but with solid reasoning. If this were a true debate, then this work would be quite a challenge to the other side, for an opposing viewpoint would have to show an essentially new argument against action, since the current ones are demolished.

The warming arctic

Over the past week or so, I've noticed a number of articles and posts about the Arctic. There seems to be some kind of ongoing flap about some climate change deniers denying that the extreme north is warming. I have (mostly) avoided reading those original posts because they can't be a good use of time (one example will essentially prove my point). Following each denier rant seems to be a barrage of posts refuting their claims. The good things about these posts are that they more carefully present evidence to support themselves and the reader can actually learn something from them (here's a good example from Tamino). Unfortunately, I don't think these posts help to convince the public of the state of the science, since the public doesn't read them (sorry, but they don't). If a person is willing to dig into the climate change issues enough to read these posts, I think they have already decided what they believe before they get involved (even passively) in these "debates." (They are, of course, not debates at all.)

Another article from the NYTimes.com helps explain why the warming Arctic is an important issue, not just for climate research, but for geopolitical and economic reasons. A commercial ship is about to finish traversing the Northeast Passage from South Korea to the Netherlands. This cuts thousands of miles off the usual trip. If more ships start going this way during the summer, Russia stands to profit because the ships will sail through Russian waters. The path has historically been blocked by ice even in the summer, but as the Arctic has warmed, summer ice has become reduced in area and thickness, and over the past few years the Northeast Passage has been open for a few weeks each year. Similarly the Northwest Passage through Canada's many islands has been open, but so far commercial ships haven't used it yet (they will soon, I would wager). These are impacts of climate change, and unlike most other impacts, these ones could be interpreted as positive for some of the involved parties. Of course, along with these routes opening, the open waters spell doom for the polar bears who have become unwitting symbols of the ecological impacts of a warming world.

On the research side of things, the warming Arctic has long been considered the proverbial canary in the coal mine. Because of strong positive feedbacks associated with snow and ice retreat and atmospheric water vapor, there has emerged a general understanding of the polar regions (especially in the north) as being particularly sensitive. The poles are expected to warm most rapidly, an effect usually called "polar amplification." There is some scientific uncertainty about whether the amplification is observed yet (e.g., this RealClimate post from C. Bitz), but there is strong consensus among researchers that it will emerge from the noise. This view is supported by climate modeling experiments, in which all the reliable models predict an amplified response in the Arctic. From my reading, which is incomplete, this extends to the Antarctic, but only on slightly longer timescales because of the heat transfer into the Souther Ocean.

Hatoyama says emission cuts are coming, maybe

So Japan's PM says that the country is going to reduce carbon emissions by 2020 to 75% of 1990 emissions [LINK], but is requiring other countries to come along for the ride.

First off, great! It is terrific to see a world leader take a stand and give a real goal... dare I say a target.

Second, this could be a genius move on Hatoyama's part. Japan is pretty amazing when it comes to designing and building stuff, and there is a strong track record of taking ideas/concepts originated elsewhere and making them more useable, streamlined, and efficient (cars, VCRs, etc). So my first take on this is that Japanese companies like Toyota and Mitsubishi ( cf.) are going to have an obvious target for building efficient things (things of all kinds!). These companies already have a head start down this path, and having a huge economy destined to reduce emissions means there is economic incentive to improve R&D.

If these companies, which are already leading the world, now accelerate their R&D, they will be selling their wares to the rest of the world shortly. This will be especially true if Hatoyama gets his way and other countries do vow to reduce emissions. If Japanese companies can do for power generation what they have done for other industries, then the whole world will be buying Honda wind turbines and Sony solar panels in now time. (possible example) What a boost to the Japanese economy! Wish the USA could have thought of that.

Is peak oil a myth?

An op-ed piece by Michael Lynch in the New York Times suggests that "peak oil theory" is just a myth [LINK]. Really what he's saying is that it is a crazy left-wing conspiracy theory. I wanted to just post some reaction to his op-ed, calling some of his arguments into question. I'm not going to claim he's wrong, just that his arguments are far from persuasive. First, let's also have some disclosure, Michael Lynch is President and Director of Global Petroleum Service, part of Strategic Energy & Economic Research Inc [LINK]. This is a consulting firm, and I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of their clients are oil companies. He's also been associated with other energy policy organizations as well as MIT. I'm not saying he is not credible, I'm sure he's an expert, I'm just saying Lynch is probably as biased as the people he is criticizing.

Lynch dismisses the statement that the "easy oil is gone." This is a common point made by people concerned with peak oil, as Lynch points out. The idea is that 100 years ago, there were oil fields that literally had oil coming out of the surface. Remember the Beverly Hillbillies? Now there aren't such high-pressure fields. Instead of accepting that as true, Lynch says the argument is "vague and irrelevant." He then says that Persian oil drillers 100 years ago wouldn't think that oil was "easy." This is a false analogy. Nobody is saying that the labor of extracting oil was ever easy. The point is about how much energy has to be spent to extract a given amount of oil, which then produces a given amount of energy. It's not easy to quantify, but as I understand the state of oil today, more energy is used to extract oil per unit energy now than it was, say, in the 1950s.

A point made just after the one above revisits the oil crises in 1973 and 1979. Lynch points to predictions from "experts" saying prices would just keep going up. Then they didn't go up. This is supposed to be part of Lynch's op-ed about arguments of political instability playing a part in oil production; he's saying that political instability is nothing new. In my reading of his article, I find that this whole section is really a straw-man argument. He brings it up because, "When their shaky claims on geology are exposed, the peak-oil advocates tend to argue that today’s geopolitical instability needs to be taken into consideration." So he sets up an argument that is not about peak oil just to shoot it down. The question of peak oil is essentially one of geology and technology; geopolitics certainly plays a role in oil production (well, maybe not according to Lynch), but it isn't part of the peak oil theory except that if production ceases in a region, then the peak would be pushed back in time.

Finally, Lynch ends with this:

In the end, perhaps the most misleading claim of the peak-oil advocates is that the earth was endowed with only 2 trillion barrels of “recoverable” oil. Actually, the consensus among geologists is that there are some 10 trillion barrels out there. A century ago, only 10 percent of it was considered recoverable, but improvements in technology should allow us to recover some 35 percent — another 2.5 trillion barrels — in an economically viable way. And this doesn’t even include such potential sources as tar sands, which in time we may be able to efficiently tap.

Well, there's a bit of an appeal to authority here, but I'm not going to claim that there's a real logical fallacy. This might just be a case of presenting (without evidence) a number that differs from the estimates I've seen before. Because there are no sources or evidence presented, it is impossible for the reader to know if this point is true or not. My guess is that there are some large error-bars on that 10 trillion barrel number, and this value is probably at the high end of them. I would hazard to guess that the 2 trillion barrel number is too low (and I have heard that number before), but that 10 trillion barrels is a pretty high estimate. The recoverable part of whatever the true number is the real question. The truth is, though, that at some point the extraction of oil becomes cost ineffective compared to other energy sources. It might be when the oil has to be mined from 5000 feet below the ocean surface or when they have to drill miles into continental bedrock or when tar sands have to be utilized, but there must be a point where the amount of energy going into the extraction of oil is nearly the same as the amount of oil extracted. At that point, there's no need to extract any oil since becomes a zero sum gain. I've always heard the argument that alternative energy sources will become much more cost effective in the run up to the zero sum gain on oil, so we'll probably never reach that extreme.

The bottom line seems to be that there are still disagreements about whether peak oil theory will pan out or not. The oil consultants say no, and a bunch of academics say yes. Hmm, interesting. Like other, strangely similar, "debates," the answer will likely be learned in the next couple of decades. And also like those other issues, by the time we find out the answer, it might already be too late to change course without drastically impacting all of our lives.

Tamino on methane release from sea floor

One of the scariest blog posts I've ever read: Tamino's Open Mind. I haven't been following these developments on possible evidence for methane clathrate instability, but clearly I should be, and we all should be.

Acid rain, a blast from the past like hearing an MC Hammer song

I just read, and quite enjoyed, a Slate article by Nina Shen Rastogi looking back at the acid rain problems of the 1980s [LINK]. She brings up a good point about the public awareness campaigns; I remember well many cartoons and kids shows mentioning and vilifying acid rain. I'm not sure that is happening now with global warming, but maybe it should be if it isn't. Anyway, the review also brings up two other good points. First, enacting acid rain mitigation strategies through federal legislation (e.g., the Clean Air Act of 1990) has dramatically reduced emissions of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide from power plants and factories, leading to an improvement in the pH (i.e., acidity) of rain across the northeast USA and eastern Canada. The point being that these strategies are proven to be successful. Second, acid rain hasn't actually gone away, and it's still a hazard in some areas in the USA and Canada. Worse yet, industrializing nations such as China and India haven't gone through the cycle of discovering they are poisoning themselves, figuring out a way to fix it, and enacting the strategy. These countries could face serious environmental and infrastructure harm if they don't preempt emissions of acid rain precursors.

All of this sounds so much like issues involved with carbon dioxide and climate change that it's eerie, huh? I guess the disappointing thing is that there's still so much hesitation and resistance to doing something about these environmental issues in our culture. We've got clear examples of success, like the ozone hole and acid rain, where science described the mechanisms and suggested the causes, and mitigation strategies were adopted, and environmental catastrophe was avoided (or at least averted). It makes me wonder if past success has lulled us all into a false sense of confidence.... you can finish this disturbing thought.

Hectic summers and big monies

The dearth of posts the last week or so has been because of a ramp-up of activity around here, including giving talks, traveling and buying a house. Speaking of which, don't forget to click those adverts!

Anyway, I'm still trying to get caught up on things, and haven't stumbled on anything all that blog-worthy. However, I just remembered that I had found some interesting numbers that I'm happy to share. The question is, how much research money is really available for climate research? And how does that compare to money for other things, other science topics and completely different endeavors?

Well, I can't answer completely, but we can start putting some things in perspective. First off, let's just restrict our attention to the United States, which isn't fair, but let's do it anyway. What is the total annual budget for the USA? According to the USA Office of Budget and Management, the typical fiscal year has about 2.8 TRILLION DOLLARS of spending. Unfortunately for the USA, it only has around 2.5 Trillion of income (the difference each year is the national deficit) [LINK]. Amazingly, the deficit is 1-2% of the gross national product. Just under half of the total budget is allocated in "discretionary spending," which I think means that Congress gets to dole it out more or less as it sees fit (and the president approves it). More than half of the discretionary spending goes to "security;" which means that about 25% of the total budget, somewhere in the neighborhood of $600 BILLION goes to security. That's a spicy meatball! About $400 billion goes to everything else; yes, I know these numbers are rough, that's why I am supplying the link for you to go take a look yourself. Let me know if I'm totally misinterpreting something.

Of the remaining $400 billion, we can start to see how it gets distributed by looking at which departments get a piece of the pie. It looks like Health and Human Services and Education are the biggest beneficiaries of this money, getting about $70 and $55 billion respectively. The National Institutes of Health is mainly funded through the Dept of Health and Human Services, and is able to dole out about $30 billion annually [LINK]. Moving into physical sciences, much more of the research comes through the Dept of Energy, NASA, the Dept of Commerce, and the National Science Foundation, with lesser contributions from other departments (e.g., $1billion to all of USGS through Dept of Interior).

The total budgets for those organizations are roughly $24billion for DoE, $6billion for DoC, $16billion for NASA, and $6billion for NSF. The first three all have significant non-research allocations, while the NSF is the dominant source of funding for all basic science research in the USA.

Let's say that somehow if we were combing through the budget, we could take that NSF money and double it from other agencies. That gives around $12 BILLION for basic physical sciences (excluding biology/medicine money from NIH). That is about 2% of the USA's annual defense budget, and LESS THAN 1/10th of 1% of the USA GDP. Isn't that shocking?!

So I can't tell you how much of that is available for climate-related research, but bear in mind that that money covers most of physics, chemistry, mathematics, geology, astronomy, and a lot of engineering research in the USA, along with quite a lot of biological sciences, climate, and multidisciplinary science. The bottom line is that science in general is a drop in the proverbial bucket, and funding for climate research is a tiny fraction of that drop.

We're throwing around some crazy numbers here. How about comparing against some non-governmental values? The annual payroll for the National Football League teams this year is hovering around $3billion [LINK]. Football players are getting paid half as much as the entire NSF. There are 53 players per team on the 32 NFL teams, giving 1696 players getting paid $3,000,000,000. There are somewhere around 250,000 scientists and engineers employed just at research universities in the USA; this includes non-physical scientists, but doesn't include government labs [LINK].

Just as another number to compare with, USA and Canada citizens spend about $8-9 billion per year in cinema tickets [LINK]. Full a third more than the entire NSF budget.

Nissan Leaf

I've never really wanted a Nissan before, but this looks pretty sweet: the Nissan Leaf, an all-electric hatchback.

[News]

El Nino 2009/2010... waiting and watching

I am finally giving in and starting what I'm sure will become a series of updates on the emerging warm-phase of the ENSO phenomenon, namely El Nino. It's becoming pretty apparent that the tropical eastern Pacific is anomalously warm, and is likely to stay that way for the next year or so [LINK]. At this point, what we can say is that the indices that are used operationally to define and track El Nino point toward a moderate to strong El Nino, but their nature is difficult to predict. You can see the development of warm anomalies of 1-2 degrees Celsius along the equator and stretching from South America into the central Pacific Ocean at the CPC page. This is the major symptom of El Nino. The impacts are not completely understood, but the slackening of the trade-winds and shift in northern hemisphere jetstream are normal. These changes tend to increase wind shear over the tropical Atlantic, which reduces the number of Atlantic hurricanes (note there haven't been any yet this year). It's also expected to make the winter of 2009/2010 mild across much of the northern hemisphere, which might lead to 2010 being a record warm year in the global average.

I'm sure we'll revisit the topic frequently in the coming months, including some review of important aspects of ENSO, and maybe some debunking of ENSO myths (e.g., increased rainfall in Southern California?).

Audience participation

This is fun:

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

The funny guy makes a good point

Here is Dara O'Brian saying things more convincingly than most more serious folks:



This video was drawn to my attention by Phil Plait's blog.

The Indian problem

I was just reading a Grist article about India wanting a global agreement on combatting climate change, while at the same time opposing binding emissions limits [LINK]. This has been, and I think will remain, a key issue for international agreements and negotiations concerning climate change. India and China have a couple of billion people, many of whom live in abject poverty. Both countries are making long strides in their development, becoming global powerhouses in terms of manufacturing and providing low-cost services to the "developed world." In this dash to bring the standard of living in China and India into alignment with the developed countries, the fossil-fuel use in these nations has increased tremendously. Of course, at the same time most Indians still burn biomass for cooking and heating [LINK, see also video].

So on the face of it, this seems to be a dilemma. India and China want to lift their populations out of poverty, expand their economies, and become global leaders. Doing this requires dramatic increases in infrastructure, and includes expanding electricity and water resources. The apparent consequence is increased carbon emissions. So, from the perspective of these developing nations, to improve the standard of living for their populations requires intensive use of fossil fuels and increased emissions, and from their perspective it's not fair that just when they are making progress the "West" tells them that they can't use the cheap (and dirty) energy that will accelerate their endeavors. From the outsider's point of view, though, ramping up the carbon emissions is bad for the whole world.

The only solution that I see to this dilemma is actually exactly what India says it doesn't want: binding emissions restrictions. Such restrictions could be quite complicated in their details, but the point is to prevent the infrastructure in developing nations from building in a dependence on fossil fuels. The world's developed nations are now addicted to fossil fuel, and it is obvious that this has become an impediment to combatting climate change. Introducing the same addiction for another 30% of the world's population doesn't seem useful. Instead, by introducing binding emissions cuts for everyone (and that is key!), the developing nations will be able to practically leap-frog the fossil-fuel phase that the west has been stuck in for a century. It'll be cost efficient, too, since all the western nations are transitioning away from fossil fuels, driving the prices of renewable energy technology down. So while all the developing nations are spending gads of money to deconstruct their antiquated systems while building up entirely new infrastructure for a low-carbon future, India and China should be able to simply begin with renewable systems (for much of their countries at least). This strategy would actually accelerate China and India's progress in catching up with developed countries because they'd avoid what will undoubtedly be a painful transition away from fossil fuels, while pioneering the large-scale use of renewable energy technologies.

Of course, this has all been about energy and money. There are a host of issues related to the impacts of climate change that will disproportionately hurt developing nations, so avoiding those impacts should be a very high priority for those countries. Maybe we should review some of those issues in a future post.

Short german video

Below find a nice short film about fossil-fuel based life. It's in German (w/English subtitles), and focuses on a German audience. Is there an equivalent film for the US?

Should we prepare for the singularity?

The singularity is the hypothesized moment when artificial intelligence becomes as intelligent as humans. At that point, machines might have the ability to decide to make smarter machines, which will make smarter machines, ad infinitum, relegating humans to a subservient role in society. Another view of the singularity is that it will free humanity from the shackles of the material world, allowing unimaginable lifespan and freedom to think, create, and explore. A NYTimes.com article covers a meeting of computer scientists who are starting to wonder whether limits on artificial intelligence research should be imposed [LINK].

The article makes it seem as though these scientists are concerned with current, or near-future, technologies that could disrupt society. It cites a few recent advances, especially pushing this empathy simulating robot. From my reading, none of these technologies seems very threatening, and most have much more potential for good than harm.

Thinking farther into the future, to a time when the singularity is imminent, these concerns become very relevant. I suspect the scientists are more interested in dealing with ethical issues now that will help decision making then. The fact of the matter is that the singularity, in one form or another, is imminent, and so some thought about what it means is important. Regulating research seems like a wrong-headed direction to me though, because that will mean that the singularity will sneak up on us. Everyone will be pushing their science to bump around the edges of the rules, and suddenly that surface beyond which lies advanced artificial intelligence will be gone, disintegrated, and humanity won't be properly prepared because everyone promised they weren't going to go past that boundary.

Don't get me wrong, even at the moment of the singularity, I don't think it means machines will start taking over. Simply having the capacity to be more intelligent than humans doesn't mean those initial machines will be successful at autonomous thought and decision-making... i.e., they won't really be conscious. Rather, those intelligent machines will be in increment in the machine-human interaction that will, I hope, push the boundaries of the human experience. There are possibilities to extend lifespan, expand thought capacity, stimulate creativity, and boost productivity. These are the promises of intelligent machines, but so were they the promises of digital computers and nano-bots, so we can't rely on it happening. We still don't have flying cars and jet-packs, and we still don't have nanotechnology that repairs roads and buildings or constructs moon bases for us, nor do we know whether a simulation of the human brain pushes artificial intelligence to a new level, or if very advanced computing technology will be able to interact with biological systems in any interesting ways [cf. LINK]. Despite my hope for the coming singularity, it is far from certain that we'll know when it happens or what it means, and it is unlikely, with any amount of planning, that we'll know what to do when that day comes to make the most of the technology.

Did the rain in Spain fall mostly on the plain, grandma?

A study about precipitation patterns in the Mediterranean region finds that there is a ubiquitous decrease [LINK]. The news article doesn't totally make sense, though, giving a mish-mash of half facts and ill-considered sentences. Maybe it's a poor translation? The figure caption is still in Spanish. The article gives the lead author and the journal, so I go to the GRL website to find the paper, and no, it isn't there. I search the web, finding the same news article over and over, "published" all over the internet, but no additional information.

I did find a very similar paper in the International Journal of Climatology, which would makes sense for this kind of study [LINK]. It's by the same author and was published in May. The difference is that this paper examines a set of precipitation indices, which I assume are based on rain gauges around the Iberian Peninsula, while the purported GRL article uses observations and the IPCC/PCMDI database of climate models. I'm not going to go into any detail on either paper, because I can't find the one that I want to see and because the one I did find doesn't seem to add any new information to the picture of decreasing precipitation in Iberia.

The topic can wait until I can get my hands on a proper analysis, but the bottom line is that there are observed changes in the precipitation across the Iberian Peninsula, especially southern Spain. This is also one of the regions that basically all the models agree will be severely impacted in the future, bringing persistent drought as global warming progresses. It's actually a pretty startlingly robust result, and is being borne out by observations. The pattern does extend across the Mediterranean, including southern France and northern Africa. The expectation is that warming will be greater in the region, and precipitation will decrease, and given the population and history of the region, I think it will prove an interesting result of climate change.

It's not just about polar bears

I just sat down to have a quick look at some of the (too many) RSS feeds I subscribe to, and I clicked on ClimateArk.org, which is essentially an environmental news aggregator. Five headlines appeared in my Google Reader screen. They highlight one of the directions that seems more and more relevant to climate science and policy: regional impacts of climate change. As the entire planet warms slightly, there will be substantial, life-altering changes to some regions, while others will be largely unaffected. Well, at least not as directly affected as some. Understanding these regional variations and predicting where they will occur and estimating the impact of changes in the physical system to ecosystems and populations is an emerging science. Even with relatively well-understood effects, like decreasing snow cover and melting permafrost in the far north, have unknown consequences (like understanding how much methane will be released when the permafrost melts).

The articles that came up on ClimateArk.org show some additional examples. First, form the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held hearings about how climate change will impact national security. Essentially, this is an example of how regional climate change will amplify unstable political situations around the world by stressing food and water supplies, changing coastlines, and shifting weather patterns. Second, a study coming out of the University of Colorado and CIRES assesses the water supply in the Colorado River Basin, and the authors suggest that persistent drought associated with climate change could lead to severe water shortages in the basin, which supplies water to some 30,000,000 people. This article reminded me of Brian Fagan’s interesting book “The Great Warming,” which looked at the so-called Medieval Warm Period and the rise and fall of societies around the world. One of the take-home messages of that book was that a little warming isn’t too bad for a lot of societies, but persistent drought destroys them. The third news item that was sitting on the top of the ClimateArk.org feed was covered by two articles, and is about crops in California’s central valley. A UC Davis study finds there has been a decrease in the “chilling hours” that cropland experiences, and several important crops rely on this cold winter weather. I would venture to guess that this regional effect is partly due to land use change and partly due to global warming, but that is just a guess. The important thing is that this becomes a serious concern to the food supply for the whole country, and many other countries, not to mention that California’s economy had long depended on agriculture. If crops start to falter in California, it really could have a destabilizing effect on the national economy and will impact jobs (agriculture, packing, shipping) and food supply and prices.

It’s also worth noting that two of the above articles contain sentences that say something like, “climate change isn’t just about polar bears, it’s about security.” In the first it is national security and in the last food security.